


His Muse with Tattr'd Fragments Graced / Shall Read Your Cares to Rest

by IHidMyFaceFromYouNoMore



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And I inserted a painting at the end of the fic, Aziraphale and Crowley Live Together (Good Omens), Crowley Has His Long Hair Again Because I Like It, Fluff, Goofing Around at a Museum, Humor, M/M, Post-Canon, just fluff, the painting mentioned in the fic of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 04:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IHidMyFaceFromYouNoMore/pseuds/IHidMyFaceFromYouNoMore
Summary: Crowley surprises Aziraphale when they encounter a special work of art at the museum.





	His Muse with Tattr'd Fragments Graced / Shall Read Your Cares to Rest

“Look, angel —” 

Aziraphale was buried in a brochure for the exhibition. “Hn?” 

“You’re not looking — look!” 

“Oh, I thought you meant ‘look’ as in —” 

Aziraphale’s head whipped up. He stopped his sentence when he realized what Crowley had meant. Crowley was standing smugly beside a painting, pointing to it and back to himself, grinning. 

“... Really?” Aziraphale squinted despite his perfect far-sightedness. 

The oil-painting depicted a red-haired lad in a frilly shirt, lying on a bed, sleeping like a rag-doll(though the arsenic bottle on the floor told a different story). Aziraphale looked from the painting to Crowley, from Crowley to the artist’s plaque. 

“You knew _Henry Wallis_?” 

“Oh, yeah, for a moment in the mid 1800’s, I did.” Crowley’s smugness was unbearable. 

“But this is painted in 1856, I thought you were asleep then?” 

“Beside a few other times, I woke up for 1854 and ‘55. Bumped into Wallis at a garden party. He was all like ‘what a handsome face, oooh, may I paint you?’ et cetera, I was like, ‘sure, but do I have to be standing for it?’ and he was like, ‘no, no, it’s really en vogue to do those paintings with sleepy fellas and dames’ and it was a done deal.” Crowley admired his clone on the wall some more. “’Course I went back to sleep for a few years after all that, I was too groggy after that sitting.” 

Aziraphale smiled skeptically. “But you slept through the modelling process?” 

“Yeah, that was the deal. Took ages. Well, not literally.” 

Aziraphale looked back at the face of the sleeping figure in the painting. “Why ‘Chatterton’? You didn’t go by Chatterton at any point.” 

“No, I just modeled for the likeness of him. Obviously I couldn’t pass for a seventeen year old.” Crowley said. “Artist-type, that Chatterton. What was his name... Toby?” 

“Erh... John? David? Samuel? Mitchell?” 

Crowley pulled a face. “How are any of those similar?” 

“I’m just throwing suggestions out there, trying to jog my memory!” 

Crowley sniffed. They went back to looking at the painting in silence for a moment. 

“Thomas! Thomas Chatterton.” Aziraphale was pleased with himself. “Lived a century before this was painted if I do remember correctly. A poet.” 

Crowley’s eyes lit up from behind his lenses. “Ah, now I remember — he wrote these poems passing them off as medieval manuscripts, the cheeky bastard. And can you guess what the name of the monk he was impersonating was?” 

Aziraphale looked back to him suspiciously. “... Crowley?” 

“Actually, Rowley. Thomas Rowley. I thought I’d shake it up a bit for a few years.” Crowley was extremely self-satisfied with that delivery. 

Aziraphale looked scandalized but also a tad impressed. “_You_ impersonated a monk? You can’t walk on consecrated ground without jumping about, how did you do it?” 

“Well, the monks in Barrow-in-Furness were a little _sloppy _with blessing the ground around them. Or at least they were in my abbey.” He was thoroughly enjoying this. “It was only a stint in the 15th century, angel. I got bored fast and went aboard a packet to Blackpool.” 

Aziraphale affectionately whacked him on the arm with the rolled-up brochure. “Vile fiend, infiltrating a convent like that. You corrupted lots of Christians, didn’t you?” 

Crowley grabbed the brochure to whack back. “Nah, I just wanted to see what it was like. And the monks had all the best wine at that time, and they were just sitting on all those barrels. They were gonna spoil, angel, what would you have done?” 

Aziraphale shook his head. “Come on, now, we’ve got the rest of the exhibit to see.” He took Crowley’s hand and dragged him toward the next corridor as the demon waved a goodbye to his twin. 

\- 

“Look, angel!” 

This time Aziraphale looked right away, even though he was right in the middle of eating a croissant. 

“Wallis let me keep the outfit, socks and all — I had forgotten it was in storage all this time. Nice, eh?” Crowley turned slowly with a grin in his yellow eyes. 

Considering how Crowley had grown his hair out again, the resemblance was striking. “You look striking.” is, however, what exited Aziraphale’s mouth. 

“Aw, thank you, angel.” Crowley went over and pecked him on the cheek. “I’m gonna go and have a bit of a lie-down.” 

“Lovely. Shall I wake you in, say, forty-fifty years?” 

“Awww — you wouldn’t, you’d miss me after a decade.” 

“No, earlier than that. Much earlier.” Aziraphale pecked him back. 

Crowley caressed his arm and walked toward the doorway for the bedroom. “You wouldn’t miss me so much if you’d join me.” 

“Oh. I thought you were joking about taking a nap.” 

Crowley poked his head through the door again. “No, I was serious. But if you don’t feel tired, you could watch. I could pose a little for you. It'd be just like being back at the museum.” 

Aziraphale put his croissant down. “Free admission? Tempting.” 

Crowley smiled before ducking back out of sight, letting Aziraphale find him in the bedroom. 

**Author's Note:**

> Henry Wallis, Thomas Chatterton, and Thomas Rowley were all real people(although Rowley probably wasn’t, it’s unclear). I am no art historian but I saw the painting and read the Tate article to go with it: tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wallis-chatterton-n01685 
> 
> Also the title 'His muse with tattr'd fragments graced, / Shall read your cares to rest' is lifted from Chatterton's poem "The Advice".
> 
> And as always, comment ! You read something you like or maybe something you're wondering about, please comment, I love reading comments.


End file.
